Lassoing + mount loyalty

I've been toying around with Riding lately, specifically with Lasso, and have come to realize that it is almost entirely useless due to a few limitations - mainly that you have to re-lasso the creature if you are knocked off, and that legendsteed creatures capable of being lassoed are extremely difficult if not entirely impossible to lasso at all.

Additionally, I would like to see a system to "tame" mounts rather than buying them - this will function as follows:

Person successfully lassos a mount, it enters the lowest of several 'tamed' stages.

At any point while being ridden henceforth, the mount will buck and attempt to escape - this will roll against your Riding and dexterity stat. If the roll succeeds, you will be forced to soothe the mount within a certain timeframe or you will be knocked off, and the mount will run a few rooms away in a given direction. If not re-lassoed within a minute, the mount will return to its original location untamed. If the roll fails, you will automatically soothe the mount and increase its loyalty by a percentage towards the next stage.

Animal loyalty may be increased by fighting with the mount (and not dying with it, death will untame the mount entirely) and feeding it appropriate food for whatever type of mount it is.

At a certain point of loyalty (say stage 3/8), the mount will become mostly tame, and will no longer attempt to buck you from its back. Henceforth, regular use of the mount by traveling with it in your entourage or on its back will increase its loyalty further. Death at any point during this process will incur a heavy loyalty hit, possibly reducing the mount to untamed status again. Loyalty will slowly decay over time henceforth, while in realms or out of it.

At the last stage of loyalty (7/8), you will be required to take the mount to its home environment and witness a touching scene where it chooses to stay with you, and the mount then becomes a fully fledged loyal denizen that can be collared and all the like.

The taming process will potentially take several days of playtime (as in an hour a day for 1-2 real life days, less if you dedicate more effort into taming the mount) for the legend mounts to prevent the market being flooded with new tamed mounts. Additionally, you may only tame one mount at a time during this whole process. Animals like gryphons will take 3-4 days of concerted effort to fully tame, while animals like mules, ponies and light horses may be tamed within a single Achaean day.

tl;dr: introduce loyalty system that allows lassoed animals to be tamed with effort, depending on Riding skill. Also adjust lassoing to actually work on legendsteeds and not be so frustrating/useless to use overall.

I like the idea, but I see two problems with it. One, Achaea needs more gold sinks, not less. If suddenly anyone can get whatever mount they want free for only a small time commitment, then we just end up with more gold in the system. Two, as previously mentioned by Daeir, I also cannot imagine the market -wont- get flooded with mounts. An hour a day for two days is nothing. Hell, even 3-4 days isn't very long at all. Unless its a long enough time period to dissuade the average person from wanting to put the effort into training a mount, then everyone will be doing it, and the market will flood. As cool as the idea sounds, I don't think its worth the side effects that it would cause.

Solution: Super expensive bait/taming food items. Perhaps you could feed it just about anything to sort of barely maintain loyalty (maybe really cheap mounts would still be tameable this way, things along the lines of mules), but if you're going for a super cool rainbow flying drake with hypnoeyes, you're gonna have to buy super magical special fruit that costs half of a ship a piece.

Super cool rainbow flying drake with hypnoeyes? That's just silly, @Nim. The fruit, however, has merit... does it come with cream?

Hiroma tells you, "I just got to listen to someone complain about your deadly axekick being the bane of their existence."Archdragon Mizik Corten, Herald of Ruin says, "Man, that was a big axk."Hellrazor Cain de Soulis, Sartan's Hammer says, "Your [sic] a beast."

Pets and mounts that can die make me sad. I still remember the dogs that hung out near the Mojushai Hold that were there, and then... not.

Why do you gotta be a jerk to animals, Thoth?

You cheated to save Aeris, didn't you?

N-no! Character death is cool when it's meaningful! In Achaea, it just feels like Thoth's a dick toward animals.

Also, more importantly, I'm not sure if you're pointing out the somewhat ridiculousness of being unable to bring Aeris back to life in spite of supposedly being able to do so in combat (although do you really die in combat, or are you just KO'd?), or if you're calling Aeris a pet/mount.

I like the idea, but I see two problems with it. One, Achaea needs more gold sinks, not less. If suddenly anyone can get whatever mount they want free for only a small time commitment, then we just end up with more gold in the system. Two, as previously mentioned by Daeir, I also cannot imagine the market -wont- get flooded with mounts. An hour a day for two days is nothing. Hell, even 3-4 days isn't very long at all. Unless its a long enough time period to dissuade the average person from wanting to put the effort into training a mount, then everyone will be doing it, and the market will flood. As cool as the idea sounds, I don't think its worth the side effects that it would cause.

maybe tamed loyals can only ever be loyal to you? And should you decide to ever get rid of it it would go back "into the wild" making the market unable to be swarmed, but leaving it where it is.

Why not just make taming cost the same amount of gold as the mount would regularly (more, if you like)? You could justify it with material, special foods, helicopter roundups (I kid, on that bit) whatever...

I would like to see lasso become useful, but I'm not sold on getting a free, permanent mount, even with a significant time investment. If Forging has taught us anything, it's that time is not a significant balancing factor, so everyone would end up with a free legendary steed if they so desired.

However, I like the idea of lasso'ed mounts staying loyal until death, a lot. You shouldn't be able to whistle for it, trade it, sell it, etc, those should be privileges earned by actually buying one, but if you just need a quick mount to fight a Monk, you should be able to go out, get one, and use it until you die or the Monk kills it. I figured that was the original design intention all along.

-- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.